1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to information processing apparatuses, information processing systems, and information processing methods.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, as functions of information processing apparatuses extend, operations involved in setting the functions become complicated. To make full use of such an information processing apparatus, a user is required to have a thorough knowledge of functions and setting operations of the information processing apparatus. However, it is often the case that a user unfamiliar with information processing apparatuses deletes setting information by mistake or causes an error by applying inappropriate settings. To avoid such a problem, for example, a method, by which a support staff providing supports for the operations can operate an information processing apparatus from a remote terminal (i.e., a terminal operated by the support staff), and a method, by which a support staff can cause a user of an information processing apparatus to operate the information processing apparatus under instructions of the support staff, are known.
A technique that enables, even if a user of an information processing apparatus cannot remember or does not understand such a supported operation, the user to repeat the operation without requiring a support from the same or another support staff. For example, Japanese Patent No. 4900422 (Patent Document 1) discloses a technique including storing content communicated between a support terminal of a support staff providing support for operations of an image forming apparatus and the image forming apparatus as movie data in storage means, storing conversation carried out between the support staff and a user of the image forming apparatus as audio data associated with the movie data in the storage means, and playing back the stored movie data and the audio data when requested by the user.
However, the technique disclosed in Patent Document 1 is disadvantageous in that an amount of data to be stored is large because the technique involves recording and storing movie data and audio data, which are generally large in data size.
Therefore, there is a need for a technique for reducing an amount of data involved in replicating an operation.